Category: Economics

You don’t expect me to LOSE money, do you? Part 3, you want WHAT?

13 February, 2008 (10:19) | Economics, LIHTC, Program administration, Tax credits, Theory, US News | No comments

[Continued from the previous Part 1 and Part 2.]
 
So far our exploration of Cornerstone Apartments in Haltom City, Texas, has covered rapes, shootings, backed-up sewers, dead rats, no heat over a weekend, enormous water bugs, and an astonishing flyer from the management agent demanding that residents repair defects that are the owner’s responsibility and tacitly […]

You don’t expect me to LOSE money, do you? Part 2: who, me?

12 February, 2008 (11:31) | Economics, LIHTC, Program administration, Theory, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we saw that Cornerstone Apartments in Haltom City, TX, a mature and nearly post-mature LIHTC property rehabbed in 1994, is in deplorable condition, despite being owned by a partnership controlled by the esteemed Chancellor of Texas Tech University, Kent Hance. 
 

The maintenance staff is fully committed
 
[Editor’s note: each LIHTC property […]

You don’t expect me to LOSE money, do you? Part 1: what problems?

11 February, 2008 (10:31) | Economics, LIHTC, Program administration, Tax credits, Theory, US News | No comments

 
 
Kent Hance, Chancellor of Texas Tech University, is an unlikely owner of LIHTC properties, but back in 1994, he made a financially brave decision, to take over as controlling general partner of Cornerstone Apartments in Haltom City, Texas, a small town northeast of Fort Worth.  As described in an article from the Fort Worth Star […]

Look after the rents and the grounds will look after themselves

7 January, 2008 (10:02) | Economics, Primer Posts, Theory | No comments

“Look after the sense, Mr. Dickens.”
 
Look after the pence, said Mr. Micawber (quoting a former Treasury secretary), and the pounds will look after themselves.
 

“Look after the pence, young master Copperfield …”
 
I always thought that a nice quote, encapsulating as it did the principle of sweating the small stuff.  And though it’s been ages since I […]

Counting kilowatts

2 August, 2007 (09:43) | Economics, Energy savings, US News | No comments

 

Give people choices, and by golly they’ll make them — and maybe make better ones than you’d expect.
 

 
That’s the implication behind this story on a novel approach to utility consumption and payment described in this story from The Wall Street Journal:
 
Peter and Suzanne Price haven’t paid a monthly electricity bill since June 2006, but not […]